The Hobart Gap (ca. 2014).

Actually March 11, 2014.  Considerably more prosaic than in the past, this is the view looking towards the highest point of the gap on US. Route 24 from Hobart Gap Road on the border between Millburn and Summit, NJ.  With the obligatory security fence.

 

A major pass through the Watchung Mountains, the Hobart Gap has been crossed by Indian trails, colonial era roads, early railroads, and today a limited access highway. 

Of special significance during the Revolutionary War since the British held the lowlands to the east and George Washington's troops hung out just the other side.  A couple of times the British tried to send German mercenaries through the gap and if successful might have wiped out the Continental Army.  But as we all know, they only managed to get a few troops killed and provide locations for historical plaques many years later.  Also as a consequence, the Hobart Gap is not in Canada today.


Here is one of those plaques nearby.   Been around since 1896 and in its present location since 1908, so it is not so easy to read.  It commemorates a signal beacon and a cannon.